300
Friday, 23. March 2007, 21:09:35
Tonight I've dined in Hell!
And wowsie, was it ever fun.
It's exactly as the trailers promise. In other words, if you like the trailers, you'll like the movie. If you don't, you won't.
It's also very much exactly like the graphic novel. Some few (very few) parts are left out, I'll get back to that, and some more parts are added. I'll get back to that as well.
It's extremely over the top. And it's probably one of the most male-audience-oriented movies I've seen, they didn't even try putting in the standard one-scene-to-draw-a-female-audience-thing. But, after all, if you've seen the trailers, this is exactly what you expect it to be, and not bad at all.
They didn't fight in phalanxes, though they pretended to, talked about it as though they were, and started and finished every battle more or less in formation, the fight-scenes themselves were largely out-of-phalanx. This can, however, be forgiven - after all, this is probably the least of the licenses this movie takes with actual history, and it makes for awesome fight-scenes.
The dialogue rocks. Seriously rocks. Just like in the graphic novel. I missed just one of the awesomest lines from the novel in the film, but that's related to the missing scenes-stuff which I'll get back to in a bit.
The filming, the visuals, everything about it visually was awesome in my opinion. I felt as though I was reading the graphic novel, the pictures just happened to be moving. And they did indeed film very many of the scenes almost exactly as depicted in the novel.
So, the added stuff. Basically, this is scenes with the Queen, back home in Sparta. I didn't mind this. The movie would be exhausting if all they did was show the fight-scenes, and it's okay that they feel they dramatically need a reminder-plot as to what these guys are fighting for. And I thought the woman playing the Queen did a nice job indeed - especially if you keep the over-the-top-thing in mind while watching her scenes. Which is more difficult, due to their more relaxed and peaceful nature the Overdone Epicness stands more out than in a violent scene of war which is kinda overdone in its nature, but if you manage, I think you'll like her scenes rather well. And I didn't find it subtracted from the movie at all.
The other added stuff was mainly a added moral in the end, almost spelling out how they saved the Greek (read: Western) way of life and such, which was a bit too thick for me, but hey, it wasn't a bad scene. This relates to my almost only complaint with the movie, which I'm almost coming to now.
The lost stuff... largely scenes regarding their march to the fighting-grounds, and this means in effect only one thing: The picking on the youngest soldiers and driving them horribly hard, and especially one called Stelios, is not in the movie. I found this to be a loss. Sure, it makes them all look all the more like Good Guys that they don't pick on their youngest, but I really liked the young inexperienced soldier's road to full acceptance portrayed in the book.
And it's one of these scenes I missed.
Leonidas holds a speech to his troops. A young one, Stelios if I remember correctly, proudly says:
"We're with you, sir. To the death."
And Leonidas cooly replies:
"I didn't ASK. Leave democracy to the Athenians, boy."
I love that piece of dialogue to bits. And I was really disappointed they didn't put it in the movie.
Of course, it would have undermined their whole thing about fighting tyranny and such and confused movie-goers, no doubt, but that's (in my opinion) just why they should have it in there.
But that's my only beef with it.
8,5/10, though I will admit, I might adjust it downwards after viewing it once more. But this was damned entertaining and cool.
And wowsie, was it ever fun.
It's exactly as the trailers promise. In other words, if you like the trailers, you'll like the movie. If you don't, you won't.
It's also very much exactly like the graphic novel. Some few (very few) parts are left out, I'll get back to that, and some more parts are added. I'll get back to that as well.
It's extremely over the top. And it's probably one of the most male-audience-oriented movies I've seen, they didn't even try putting in the standard one-scene-to-draw-a-female-audience-thing. But, after all, if you've seen the trailers, this is exactly what you expect it to be, and not bad at all.
They didn't fight in phalanxes, though they pretended to, talked about it as though they were, and started and finished every battle more or less in formation, the fight-scenes themselves were largely out-of-phalanx. This can, however, be forgiven - after all, this is probably the least of the licenses this movie takes with actual history, and it makes for awesome fight-scenes.
The dialogue rocks. Seriously rocks. Just like in the graphic novel. I missed just one of the awesomest lines from the novel in the film, but that's related to the missing scenes-stuff which I'll get back to in a bit.
The filming, the visuals, everything about it visually was awesome in my opinion. I felt as though I was reading the graphic novel, the pictures just happened to be moving. And they did indeed film very many of the scenes almost exactly as depicted in the novel.
So, the added stuff. Basically, this is scenes with the Queen, back home in Sparta. I didn't mind this. The movie would be exhausting if all they did was show the fight-scenes, and it's okay that they feel they dramatically need a reminder-plot as to what these guys are fighting for. And I thought the woman playing the Queen did a nice job indeed - especially if you keep the over-the-top-thing in mind while watching her scenes. Which is more difficult, due to their more relaxed and peaceful nature the Overdone Epicness stands more out than in a violent scene of war which is kinda overdone in its nature, but if you manage, I think you'll like her scenes rather well. And I didn't find it subtracted from the movie at all.
The other added stuff was mainly a added moral in the end, almost spelling out how they saved the Greek (read: Western) way of life and such, which was a bit too thick for me, but hey, it wasn't a bad scene. This relates to my almost only complaint with the movie, which I'm almost coming to now.
The lost stuff... largely scenes regarding their march to the fighting-grounds, and this means in effect only one thing: The picking on the youngest soldiers and driving them horribly hard, and especially one called Stelios, is not in the movie. I found this to be a loss. Sure, it makes them all look all the more like Good Guys that they don't pick on their youngest, but I really liked the young inexperienced soldier's road to full acceptance portrayed in the book.
And it's one of these scenes I missed.
Leonidas holds a speech to his troops. A young one, Stelios if I remember correctly, proudly says:
"We're with you, sir. To the death."
And Leonidas cooly replies:
"I didn't ASK. Leave democracy to the Athenians, boy."
I love that piece of dialogue to bits. And I was really disappointed they didn't put it in the movie.
Of course, it would have undermined their whole thing about fighting tyranny and such and confused movie-goers, no doubt, but that's (in my opinion) just why they should have it in there.
But that's my only beef with it.
8,5/10, though I will admit, I might adjust it downwards after viewing it once more. But this was damned entertaining and cool.
(0%)
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